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CHARITY BLOG
WWF CELEBRATES INDIAN OCEAN PROTECTION
African pact only 3rd unilateral agreement to protect marine envirnoment
The western Indian Ocean yesterday became only the third marine area of the world to achieve a multilateral agreement to limit and control land-based impacts on the marine environment, after officials from ten countries and territories endorsed or signed off on an agreement to protect the East African Coast.
The signing of the protocol follows five years of negotiation and nine demonstration projects focusing on dissemination of technologies and approaches for the sustainable management and protection of the marine ecosystems.
The parties involved in the agreement are Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles, Reunion, Mauritius, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa.
While the need for ecosystems and habitats to be protected gave the countries significant moral reasons to back the proposal, its ratification was made more likely after a recent United Nations report showed the economic importance of the Western Indian Ocean Region.
The estimated value, in the form of goods and services provided by marine habitats such as coastal and mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass beds was analysed to be more than US$25 billion per year.
Dr Amani Ngusaru, head of WWF’s Coastal East Africa Marine Programme, said “Over 60 million people in eastern and southern Africa live and depend on the goods and services provided by the coastal and marine ecosystems of coastal east Africa.”
“However, the resources of coastal East Africa are coming more and more under threat from rapid population growth, increased resource exploitation, unplanned development and climate change,”
“Countering these trends is complicated by a lack of capacity and effective legal instruments that governments can use to champion the protection of the marine environment.”
The meeting of parties to the Nairobi Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region also endorsed a first ever Strategic Action Programme for marine protection in the area.
Dr Ngusaru, summed up the optimism felt at this huge positive move for conservation in Africa: “This agreement comes at an opportune time, and will be assisting us with our initiatives in coast East Africa to save one of the few remaining areas of the world that are still unspoilt,”
